Northeast High Students Get Schooled In Digital Forensics
Author: News Bureau
Posted: Monday, April 28, 2014 5:11 PM
Category:
School of Information Technology
Macon, GA
The 9 Northeast students, all members of the STEM club, visited Middle Georgia State to tour the
School of IT's new digital forensics lab and take part in demos of the sophisticated equipment.
IT majors and faculty - including Johnathan Yerby and Shannon Beasley - talked to the students
about the increasing role of such equipment in civil and criminal case investigations. They discussed how just days earlier, Macon media reported that digital forensics, including the recovery of deleted images on a video camera, played a major role in the decision of a murder defendant to plead guilty to the 2011 murder of a Mercer law student.
"This is an evolving and rapidly growing field that quite a few high school students would be interested in pursuing if they knew more about it," said Dr. Kevin Floyd, program chair and associate professor of IT. "Bringing students to the lab gives them an opportunity to understand the significance of the field and perhaps get them interested in enrolling at Middle Georgia State."
Middle Georgia State is one of the few institutions in the University System of Georgia - and the only one in the midstate - to offer a digital forensics/information security concentration as part of its IT degree program. The lab, located in room 253 of the Professional Sciences & Conference Center on the Macon Campus, is funded by a National Science Foundation grant the college got last year to expand digital forensics education.
The NSF grant funds the Southeastern Advanced Cybersecurity Education Consortium (ACE), to
which Middle Georgia State belongs.
Jacqueline Bowman, Northeast's STEM coordinator, accompanied the students on their Middle
Georgia State visit. Most of the students are enrolled in the computer hardware or business classes she teaches.
"I wanted them to see how what they learn in the classroom applies to careers," she said. "It's a great opportunity for them."
Floyd said the School of IT will continue to reach out to area high schools to promote digital forensics education, one of the major goals of ACE.
Email Dr. Kevin Floyd at kevin.floyd@mga.edu for more information about the digital forensics lab.
More info about the School of IT's degree programs is at https://www.mga.edu/information-technology/programs.aspx.